There have been several stadiums constructed with the purpose of moving sections of stands or portions thereof so that a variety of activities may be conducted therein. The two most publicized activites for stadiums in the United States are football and baseball. At the present time, owners, managers and players in these sports feel that stadiums that can be converted to accommodate each sport do not work well. They feel that if it is good for baseball, it is not good for football and vice versa. This is due to many apparently irreconcilable differences such as the size of the fields, the shape of the fields, the differences in the playing surfaces and particularly in seating. Football has fewer games so that football stadiums are planned for larger per game attendance. Baseball has far more games so that baseball stadiums are planned for smaller attendance. Another major problem is that both football and baseball spectators want to be as close as possible to the playing field. In addition to the foregoing, aesthetics must be considered. Most spectators want a football stadium to look like a football stadium and a baseball stadium to look like a baseball stadium. Convertible stadiums now in use look like a make-shift compromise.
In Hadden, U.S. Pat. No. 1,433,547, there is disclosed a system for moving sections of stands about a plurality of a pivot axes so as to convert the grandstands from a shape for a football field to a shape for a baseball field. Hadden makes no attempt to solve the seating problem. Also, the playing surface for the baseball field must be located a substantial distance from the stands 10 and 11. Bouton, U.S. Pat. No. 3,975,869, provides a stadium having movable sections so that it may be converted to a variety of playing surfaces. However, as noted in FIGS. 2 and 3, Bouton accommodates substantially fewer spectators for football as compared to baseball. Mackintosh, U.S. Pat. No. 4,162,594, discloses portable grandstand seating sections but these sections have only limited seating capacity.